Anybody Buy A Laptop Recently?

[jp300]

Am shopping for a birthday gift to self, budget $400 to $700, with intention of either dual boot linux mint or linux mint alone on an ssd. Not primary photo editing device, but if it's good enough, connected to external monitor, who knows? Any recent purchases in this price range?

 

[bdbits]

There are a lot of laptops in that range. This is a good time of year to buy as you can take advantage of sales aimed at graduation presents.

I am not up so much on current offerings, so I do not have a particular recommendation. Laptops do vary a lot ergonomically, so if at all possible, I would try to look at a brick and mortar store to see what you prefer. Avoid the cheapest ones - they tend to use processors that are poky and/or hot, lower-performing hard drives, etc. If you can, get one with a solid-state drive - you will not believe how much better it is than a traditional hard drive. And if you can get one from a vendor's business class lineup for that price, shoot for that as the quality is usually a lot better and it will likely weigh less and have better battery life.

 

[jp300]

Thanks Bob. There's a MicroCenter store nearby. Will check some out...

 

[WestOkid]

Thanks Bob. There's a MicroCenter store nearby. Will check some out...

I totally agree that an SSD will give the most bang for the buck for general purpose computing. Particularly since you are going with Linux, which is a pretty light weight OS so computing power won't be as much of a factor as it would be for a windows machine.

Also Microcenter is a good place to start because they will have a huge varied selection and their prices can't be beat. They are also an internet vendor, so if you think you can find a better price, just search on line and if you find it better from a reputable competitor, they will match it. You can do this in-store. Just show them the site. I have done it many times.

 

[jp300]

I totally agree that an SSD will give the most bang for the buck for general purpose computing. Particularly since you are going with Linux, which is a pretty light weight OS so computing power won't be as much of a factor as it would be for a windows machine.

Also Microcenter is a good place to start because they will have a huge varied selection and their prices can't be beat. They are also an internet vendor, so if you think you can find a better price, just search on line and if you find it better from a reputable competitor, they will match it. You can do this in-store. Just show them the site. I have done it many times.

Thanks Gary -- great tip on price matching. I went there today and was most impressed, bang for buck, with the Acer Aspire line. Only thing I didn't love was the screen, but in my price range, no screen impressed me. Most of the time I will be connected to an external monitor anyway, so NBD...

 

[WNG]

Pricing has become quite affordable for SSDs, so definitely must have as a main OS/apps drive. a 1 TB HDD as a secondary archive drive is a nice option over a rather dated CD/DVD burner. USB 3.1 ports are a must. And if you're attaching external monitors, be sure to have the latest Displayport or HDMI standards for higher res monitors, ie 1440-4K.
If you can afford it, M.2 drives are smaller and faster than SSDs. And I'm sure the cost will be cheaper for these in the future.